


pull these old white sheets from my head

by cryptidkidprem



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Character Study, Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Tenderness, food and tea as love languages, post-159/pre-160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:49:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27134132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidkidprem/pseuds/cryptidkidprem
Summary: People don’t come back from the dead for Martin. They don’t look at him like they’re lost without him there. They don’t barge into his office with desperation in their eyes and half-baked ideas of running off together. They certainly don’t follow Martin into a death sentence; they don’t kill for him and beg him to see and drag him out, clutching his hand like he’s someone worth holding onto, someone worth wanting.But Jon finds him in the Lonely.Or: Martin Blackwood, on being wanted.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 46
Kudos: 350





	pull these old white sheets from my head

**Author's Note:**

> how many fics can i write in the interim between 159 and 160? place ur bets now. the number just keeps climbing! 
> 
> in this edition: evan dumps about their own depression and romantic fantasies, slaps martin blackwood's name on it, and calls it a character study:-)
> 
> i don't think trans jewish jm made it into this fic explicitly but just know they're still trans and jewish in my heart so don't get any big ideas about trying to read them cis or goyish here =^_^=

The truth is, Martin has always been a little bit Lonely.

Which is to say that he’s always been, when you get down to it, really good at being alone. He has always tried to make it a good thing — he’s independent, resourceful, can take care of himself. (And others; he can always take care of others.) But the root of it is this: he’s one his own, and has been for awhile, so there’s not much of a choice but to get really, scarily good at being by himself.

It’s surprisingly easy. He makes himself smaller until he’s practically invisible, gets lost at the edges of the crowd, finds all the little crannies people won’t stare at him, where he can just be by himself. The less attention turned his way, the better.

He’s a lot, as a person, so he does what he can to be _less_ , until there’s so little left of him sometimes he’s surprised he hasn’t just vanished entirely. And this... The funny thing is, all of this was _before_. He’s never needed the Lonely to be alone. He does that just fine on his own. It’s scary, really; this is what he’s good at. But being scary is kind of the point, isn’t it? This thing feeds on his fear, and Martin is, well… he’s terrified, almost all of the time.

At least this fear feels familiar. He’s been scared of losing people all his life, hasn’t he? Ever since his dad, it’s all just fear, waiting for the day they walk away, too.

So, yeah. Okay. Point being, when Peter Lukas offers him a way to protect the few people left on this earth who haven’t walked away from him, it’s surprisingly easy to take it. It hurts, but everything hurts these days, in new and infinitely multiplying ways all the time. This, at least, is the lesser of the hurts, a way to not have to deal with… With everything, with Tim and his mum and Jon— god, _Jon_ —

Martin… He just can’t; after the Unknowing, he is not strong enough to have all of his happen to him. This is not something he can deal with. It’s almost a relief, to have a way out. To have somewhere to neatly tuck his grief away, buried safely under layers of fog and numbness.

It almost feels good, to be the one cutting himself off. He’s always been the one reaching out, the one being turned away. And he’s gotten good at being alone. It’s become his normal. It’s just how he operates now. (And always has been, really.)

Which is why it’s such a shock when Jon reaches out to him, tries desperately to pull him back.

Martin Blackwood is not the one people reach for. He is not someone people fight for. He slips out of people’s lives like a ghost and they barely even notice when he’s gone.

People don’t come back from the dead for Martin. They don’t look at him like they’re lost without him there. They don’t barge into his office with desperation in their eyes and half-baked ideas of running off together. They certainly don’t follow Martin into a death sentence; they don’t kill for him and beg him to see and drag him out, clutching his hand like he’s someone worth holding onto, someone worth wanting.

But Jon finds him in the Lonely.

Jon _finds him in the Lonely_ , and no matter how many times Martin tries to push him away, he keeps coming back. He asks Martin to look at him, and Martin does, and it breaks him open a little bit.

It’s just (and Martin feels quite sad and more than a little pathetic admitting this), Martin can’t remember what it really feels like to be loved. He can’t remember his father and he can’t remember when his mother stopped, and after that, well… That’s when he started shrinking, let himself become invisible.

But when he looks at Jon, all he can see is love. He sees the way Jon looks at him, sees the way that love has woven itself down into Jon’s atomic core, coloring his every action. Martin can never disappear to Jon, just as Jon can never disappear to Martin.

The thing that scares Martin most is knowing that he came so close to forgetting just how much he always wanted this. Yes, Martin has always been, for the most part, alone. But the Lonely stole something from him. Martin wants it back.

After Jon leads him out of the Lonely, there’s a horrifying moment where Martin feels everything, all at once, an electrical shock right to the heart. And then he just feels tired. As cliché as it sounds, the evening passes as a blur, and the next thing Martin’s entirely, consciously aware of, he’s waking up on his own sofa, hair knotted up with sea salt and an ache somewhere deep behind his ribs.

Martin takes a deep, slow breath. He doesn’t know where his glasses are. His body protests to not being hollow anymore, adjusting and re-learning how to be human. After everything, his muscles have gone stiff, and sore, and sleeping on the couch has not helped.

Very slowly, Martin rolls over onto his back, and feels thick, feather-down fabric shift with him, warm and a little scratchy where one of the feathers is poking through. He recognizes the duvet from his bed, tucked safely around him. He’s fairly sure he didn’t actually bring it out from his bedroom last night, which can only mean…

He opens his eyes and sits up slowly, blinking into the golden morning light. Last night was a blur, still, but remembers enough to make this moment feel almost painfully real. There is one thing he remembers in stark, crystalline clarity: Jon is with him.

Martin’s eyes seem to seek him out of their own volition. He’s curled on the floor by the sofa, face half-buried and hair haloing out over one of Martin’s pillows with the little daisies and dandelions on the case. The tips of his long, delicate fingers poke from under one of the extra quilts Martin keeps in the hall closet.

He can picture Jon poking around his flat, digging through his closet and looking for blankets in the dead of night, on the balls of his feet like he does when he’s trying to be quiet (or just when he’s nervous), in his socks, hair a mess. It’s almost overwhelming, but Martin likes it. He likes looking at Jon’s head on his pillow. He likes the idea of Jon making himself at home here, even in little ways like this. Even if Martin himself hasn’t felt at home here for as long as he can remember.

(Martin tries to remember the last time he’s ever felt at home anywhere. The fact he’s not sure what that should feel like answers some question Martin hadn’t wanted to ask and he has to stop thinking about it.)

Jon can’t be comfortable on the floor like that. Martin’s building was built cheap in the 70’s; it’s just thin, ugly carpet on thin concrete and none of it is forgiving. His night on the lumpy sofa feels downright luxurious in comparison.

Martin swallows, sits up, and pushes the comforter off of himself into a lumpy pile on the sofa. He slips off the couch as silently as he can (he’s good at quiet, even with all the weight of being human back in his chest), right by Jon. Hovering awkwardly, he pauses, hesitates. Chronically unsure, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, before he finally crouches down by Jon’s head.

Jon followed him into the Lonely. Jon pulled Martin out because Martin is someone Jon can’t lose. Jon came to _him_ when he wanted to run away. It’s _fine_.

It still takes him a moment to work up the courage.

“Jon,” Martin murmurs, softly.

He reaches out with shaky fingers and runs a hand through Jon’s hair. (He’s imagined waking Jon like this so many times. In most of his fantasies they’re in bed together and they’re both happy and neither one of them has to remember how to be people. But this is good, too.)

Jon startles awake almost instantly. Light sleeper still, then, with plenty of reasons to be jumpy. He blinks, quickly, until his eyes focus, finding Martin’s. He’s a little blurry (no glasses and all) but Martin holds his gaze.

Jon relaxes. Settles back against the pillow, lets Martin’s fingers comb all the way through his hair, avoiding any knots they meet in along the way.

“Jon,” Martin repeats, almost amazed at the softness he’s able to dig up after a full year of hollow sorrow. “Get up off the floor.”

Jon makes a noise. Waves his hand (or, he moves his fingers vaguely in a gesture that looks like it might be a wave if he had more energy) squeezes his eyes shut again.

Martin sighs, but it’s all fondness. He brushes a thumb along Jon’s cheek, knuckles grazing crescent-moon scars and soft skin. “C’mon,” Martin cajoles, “You’ll be sore.”

Jon sighs. Slowly, stiffly, he pushes the quilt down, rubs a hand over his face. “What— what time is it?” He mumbles. Hoarse and thick, disgruntled and confused, Jon sounds… exactly as Martin has always imagined him to sound in the mornings.

It takes him a moment to realize he’s smiling. “Dunno,” he says. “You can go back to sleep, just… Not on the _floor_.”

Jon makes a noise, somewhere between a hum and a groan, and reluctantly pushes himself up into a sitting position. “No. It’s ten-forty-six,” he tells Martin. “I’m up.”

“Wha—” Ah. As far as Beholding’s influence goes, being Eldritch Siri is extremely benign compared to stalking strangers and pulling out their traumas. “Alright, well, be _up_ on the couch, then.” Without waiting for an answer, he grabs Jon’s hand, starts to get up and pull Jon with him.

“Christ,” Jon mutters, “have you always been this bossy?”

“Only when you don’t take care of yourself,” Martin tells him.

Jon grunts something nondescript, but complies. He’s very light, and even with sleep still clinging to his limbs Martin gets him on his feet. He sways, gently, getting his balance while he adjusts to wakefulness, and Martin steadies him, hands on either side of Jon’s arms, sliding down to his hands once he’s sure Jon’s stable. And then they’re just standing there. Holding hands.

Martin waits for Jon to let go. He doesn’t. So… Martin doesn’t either.

It occurs to him, as Jon’s fingers curl around the back of his hands, that Martin can’t remember the last time anyone really touched him like this. He thinks he can remember — back when Sasha was still Sasha, and back before Tim shut everyone out in his self-destructive grief — that they would sometimes touch him. Casually. Like they were maybe sort-of almost friends. Pats on the shoulder. Little squeezes on his arm. 

But it was always so. Fleeting. Insubstantial. Just made the ache worse, because it just showed him a shadow of the thing he was missing out on; just made him feel more Lonely.

But Jon is here, first thing in the morning, holding onto Martin’s hands.

“Erm,” Martin finally says, when it all becomes too much and he has to duck his head, look away.

Jon lets out a slow breath, and doesn’t let go of Martin’s hands. His voice is nearly unbearably gentle when he asks, “Did— did you sleep well?”

“I— Um.” Martin stops, really considers that. He’s still tired, although he gets the feeling this kind of exhaustion isn’t the sort sleep can fix. But… he didn’t have any nightmares, and he woke up with Jon curled up a few feet away from him. “Not too bad, I think. H-how ‘bout you?”

He glances up, catches Jon’s pained smile. “No worse than usual,” he says.

Martin hums quietly. “Well, could’ve been better if you’d slept in a real bed.”

Jon snorts. “No, it wouldn’t’ve.”

“Stubborn,” Martin accuses.

“No, I just—” Jon cuts himself off.

“… You’re just stubborn?”

“ _No_ ,” Jon insists again, “I just didn’t want to be away from you.”

Oh.

“Oh,” Martin says eloquently.

“Yes,” Jon says softly.

And, well. Martin knows Jon loves him. He saw it, in the Lonely, and there’s still enough Beholding in him to trust the things he sees with his own eyes. But seeing and feeling are different things, and Martin’s been cutting himself off from feeling anything for nearly a year now.

So the wave of feeling that passes through him now is nearly incapacitating. He has to shut his eyes to ride it out, focus on breathing so he doesn’t get choked up.

“Martin?” Jon asks. “E-everything alright?”

Martin swallows. He nods, slowly. “Yeah, um. Yeah, I—” He deflects, last minute, because the rest of his words get stuck somewhere on the way to his throat. It’s early, still; he can’t be expected to process things like this yet. “Do you know what happened to my glasses?”

“Oh.” Jon blinks. “Yes. They’re on the,” he jerks his elbow out to the left, his hands still occupied, “the. Uh, the end table.”

Martin looks over. Sure enough, his glasses sit on the table, neatly folded up.

“You fell asleep wearing them,” Jon explains. “It. Didn’t look too comfortable.”

“Ah,” Martin says.

His hands feel colder when he regrettably has to pull away, and his glasses are smudged at salt-speckled when he slips them on. Martin grimaces. He takes them off again and rubs at the lenses with the hem of his shirt. He doesn’t want to think about the salt or why it’s there, because then he’ll have to think about yesterday, and he can’t really. Deal. With yesterday yet.

Except he kind of has to, now, doesn’t he? Jon killed Peter Lukas and Elias is Jonah Magnus and he’s loose and running around somewhere below London and who knows what the hell is happening back at the Institute and _Jon is right here in his apartment with him_.

No matter how much Martin avoids and avoids and avoids, all of this all still true, still needing to be dealt with. Life doesn’t just stop because you need a break. There’s no time to just catch his breath, no time to try and pull together some kind of person from the scattered pieces of his life. It’s all just _happening_ , still, now, always. Getting a full night’s sleep was probably a miracle, and who knows—

“Martin,” Jon says again, with a gentle hand on Martin’s elbow.

A knot of tension Martin hadn’t even noticed building up rushes out of him at the touch. He blinks, manages to get his semi-clean glasses back on.

“Jon,” he says, turning back to him. “What. Uh, what happens now?”

Jon blinks. He opens his mouth, shuts it again slowly. Finally, he sets his jaw, looks up at Martin with a remarkably determined expression for someone with bedhead and pillow creases still fading on his cheek. “Well. First I think we should probably eat some breakfast. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’ve eaten since… day before yesterday, but I can’t imagine… everything that happened left much time for snack breaks. And then, after that, if it’s alright with you I’d very much like to use your shower, because my hair is a goddamn mess and I feel distinctly _grimy_ right now.”

The world doesn’t stop, but here’s Jon offering him a respite anyways.

“Okay, um.” Martin nods slowly. “Yeah. That— that sounds okay to me.”

“Alright. Good.” Jon nods, once, that same sharp, decisive thing Martin is so familiar with. It’s… comforting. Jon is still Jon; A year later, he is still the man Martin loves.

Jon fidgets for a moment, hand fluttering by his side. Just a second of hesitation, before he turns and picks his way across the floor and over to the kitchen. Martin’s kitchen. Just like that, Jon Sims is standing in Martin’s kitchen.

Martin follows, and then he’s standing with Jon Sims, in his kitchen, at 11:00 in the morning. There’s a window over the sink that lets in plenty of light, but Jon flicks the switch on anyway, and Martin watches the illumination double on his messy hair, his sharp cheekbones and quietly determined eyes.

Martin looks, watches, standing a few feet away trying to find some kind of middle ground between total numbness and being swept away with feeling. He has to find some kind of middle ground or he’s not going to survive this morning.

“Uh,” Martin starts, “I. I don’t really know if, if I’ve got much in? I don’t. I mean—” He stops, flustered. There are aspects of the Lonely that are… just _embarrassing_ to admit to another person. Even to Jon.

Martin was never much of a cook to begin with, but it’s. It just takes so much energy to do things like shop and cook and eat, and that’s just not something Martin’s had an abundance of this past year. Energy. The thing about cutting yourself off from the world, is that things like personhood tend to go with it. You don’t notice how much of _you_ is dependent on _other people_ , and there’s not much point putting up that much effort just for _himself_.

“I, I don’t cook here, a lot,” Martin finally manages to get out. “Lots of take out. Not a lot of breakfasts at home.”

_Not a lot of breakfasts_ , full stop.

Jon nods thoughtfully. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”

There’s no judgement there. No silent admonishment. Martin takes a shaky breath, the corner of his lips tugging up, just the slightest bit.

_We_.

Jon pops his fridge open, and Martin moves to stand beside him. It’s a sad sight in there, really, but Jon just hums, studying the meager supplies with that same quiet intensity. Martin… Martin mostly just looks at Jon.

“Right,” Jon declares, after a moment’s careful consideration.

He shuts the fridge, and Martin has to quickly side-step out of his way as he turns to the cabinets. He backs up and leans against the opposite countertop, out of the way, like they do this everyday. Jon’s on some kind of mission, and Martin thinks he’ll be of most help by just… letting him have at it. He gets so single-minded, when he sets his mind to something, there’ll be no stopping him.

He wonders, is this what it would be like all the time? If things were even a little bit normal for them? If he and Jon could just… _be_ a couple, would their mornings look like this? With Jon, poking around for something to eat, and Martin watching him with quiet, sleepy awe?

(There’s an ache there, too, but Martin isn’t sure if that would go away even if this _was_ their normal. He might just be too sappy for that.)

And then something else clicks, as he watches Jon.

“That’s mine,” Martin blurts, grabbing the hem of Jon’s sweater before he can stop himself, before he can work himself up with nerves.

Jon freezes, a mostly-full jar of cinnamon in his right hand. “Er,” he says. “Yes.”

It had taken Martin awhile to notice because he hasn’t seen this particular sweater Jon’s wearing in ages. He lost a lot of his things when he was living at the Institute, in the chaos of the Prentiss attack and all the nightmares that followed. Has Jon had it this whole time? Was he wearing it when he came for Martin in the Lonely?

“Would you… like it back?” Jon asks, looking at Martin over his shoulder.

Martin might actually cry. “No,” he says. “Keep it. Please.”

Jon gives him a look, and Martin sees all his own fondness mirrored right back at him.

Martin’s heart skips, snags, very nearly stops, and he ducks his head. “I’m, um. I— Er, are you okay here? Can I— Do you mind—” He stumbles for the right words, jerks his thumb over his shoulder. He just… needs a minute.

Jon huffs. “A-as long as you don’t mind me digging through your kitchen without you.”

Martin wants nothing more than for Jon to feel comfortable enough here to go digging through his kitchen on his own. “Knock yourself out,” Martin tells him, “totally fine by me.”

Jon gives him a shaky smile. “Alright. I’m fine here, then.”

Martin nods, dips quietly out of the kitchen and down the hall. He locks himself in the bathroom and leans heavily against the door. He’s not sure if he wants to laugh or cry, so he stifles the impulse to do either, burying his face in his hands and taking a moment to really collect himself.

In the last 24 hours, Martin’s whole world has flipped on its axis. Everything feels upside-down, and Martin wishes that wasn’t so hard to deal with. He can’t remember the last time he had someone in his space like this.He doesn’t think he’s ever _wanted_ someone in his space so badly before.

Martin washes his face with cold water from the sink, but all that does is remind him that he’s still got the Lonely all over him. His hair’s knotted and salt-soaked from the beach and the cold fog, brittle and spiky near the ends. His clothes feel like they’re sticking to his skin, cloying and close just like the fog had been. He shivers, wrinkles his nose, sticks out his tongue in distaste. It feels like he’s just come back from a too-long day at the beach, if the beach could give you a hangover.

Unable to stand it for even a second longer — he’s not _there_ anymore, Peter played his hand and died for his efforts, Martin doesn’t need to go along with his _bullshit_ ever again — Martin shucks his old clothes off and gets in the shower, letting the water run and scrubbing at his skin until he’s satisfied the Lonely won’t just come right back and cling to him the moment he gets out.

When he’s done, and the whole bathroom smells like the roses and vanilla in his favorite body wash instead of cold salt and dust. He buries his old clothes at the bottom of the hamper in his bedroom where he won’t have to deal with them before changing into something clean, and new, and fresh. It helps, he has to admit. Makes him feel _awake_.

When Martin heads back out, he finds Jon at the stove, something sizzling away in one of those cast iron frying pans Martin bought because he thought they looked _homey_ and then never used in the two years he’s owned them.

Martin hesitates, stopped short in the doorway by the sunlight dappling Jon’s hair, the way his hands move, the way he goes up on his tiptoes every couple of seconds like he’s trying to get a better look at the stove, even though he can see the pan fine. Not even Jon is _that_ short.

Martin unsticks his feet and makes himself shuffle forward. “You found something, then?” He asks.

Jon looks up at Martin, throws him a quick little smile. “French toast,” he tells him. “Although you haven’t got much to put on it. Just some… questionable strawberry jam and a couple spoonfuls of powdered sugar.”

Drawing completely a blank, mind buzzing in a way that is not actually unpleasant, all Martin can think to say is, “I… didn’t even know I still had any jam.”

Jon huffs. “Your fridge isn’t _completely_ empty.”

Martin hums, nods, shifts his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. “Um,” he starts, “do you. Need any help? Anything I can do?”

Jon shifts the spatula to his left hand, waves Martin off with his right. “No, please. I’ve got it.”

“Right.” Martin nods. “Okay.”

He’s not used to being the one who gets looked after, gets cooked for and smiled at and watched over as he sleeps. He’s usually the one who does these things for other people. But he’s not been very good at looking after even himself these past few months, so it’s not like he has it in him to look after the both of them right now.

He’s just… not the person he used to be. What if he’s changed so much he’s not the person Jon fe—

“Um,” he says again, just to stop his thoughts there before they can get away from him and drag him down. “I could make us tea?”

Jon looks at him like he’s seen a ghost. A ghost he’s happy to see, but a ghost nonetheless. “I— That— If, if you want to, that… I would really like that,” Jon admits in a rush.

So Martin makes tea, and beside him Jon makes breakfast, and it feels almost like they’re just normal people, getting ready for the day together. Martin clears off the kitchen table he’s never actually used to eat at since he moved in, sets two mugs down next to two plates, and Jon sets a third plate of food down between them with the jam and the sugar.

Martin doesn’t normally eat breakfast. Even before the Lonely, there was never really time, and he wasn’t really all that hungry before work anyway. And maybe he’s not the authority on the subject he used to be, but he doubts everything that’s happened in the last half a year has convinced Jon to start eating three square meals a day.

But there’s still something about sitting down and sharing breakfast that feels right regardless.

So they sit, and they eat, mostly in a silence which manages to feel companionable instead of oppressive like the kind Martin’s gotten so used to. He keeps sneaking little looks up at Jon, peeking up at him through his lashes, out of the corner of his eyes, until he looks up and finds Jon looking back at him.

Martin startles, and Jon doesn’t look away. He just shifts, fork forgotten in on hand, the other slipping closer to Martin on the table, and _looks_ in the most human way Martin knows how to describe.

“What?” Martin asks, “do I have something on my face?”

“Um,” Jon says, pursing his lips to fight off a smile.

“Oh, god, do I really?” Martin swipes at his mouth self-consciously, but Jon stops him with gentle fingers on his wrist.

“No, it’s fine. Here, just—” And then he leans in and puts those gentle fingers on Martin’s _face_ ; index and middle fingers under his chin, thumb swiping at the corner of his mouth. “Just a bit of sugar.” His cheeks darken, which Martin might not’ve noticed, but he’s so close right now Martin can see the blush just fine. “I, uh. I got it,” he adds, belatedly.

Martin has to take a second, rebooting every part of his body, unfortunately saving the brain for last. Undoubtedly, the way his cheeks flame with heat and color is bound to be far, far more noticeable than Jon’s.

“Er,” he finally says, voice embarrassingly squeaky. He clears his throat and tries again. “Right. Thanks.”

Jon’s face softens, sunshine-soft smile slipping onto his lips as he looks back at Martin. He opens his mouth to say something, and— then Jon’s phone choses _that_ moment to ring, and Martin startles and jerks backwards so fast his chair squeaks against the floor. It’s something of a comfort that Jon looks like he’s just as shaken when he scrambles up to grab his phone from where he’s left it on the kitchen counter.

He picks it up and frowns deeply at the screen. “It’s Basira,” he said, “This is— I should probably— I. I should take this.”

Martin just nods, not entirely trusting his voice right now.

Jon takes his phone into the living room with him to take the call, and Martin gets up and follows after him, hanging back to give him enough space while still keeping Jon in his eyesight.

Jon answers with a nervous “Basira?”

Jon’s shoulders relax as Basira — assumedly — responds on the other end of the line.

“How are you?” Jon asks cautiously.

Whatever she says, Jon is silent for significantly longer this time. He starts to pace back and forth, and Martin tracks him with his eyes, leaning against the wall a few feet away.

“Is she—” Jon says, but he’s cut off before he can finish. He nods, slowly, solemnly, his face going grim. “Ah,” he finally says, voice rough and weak. “I— Yes. Right…”

There’s another pause, the faint buzz of Basira’s voice all that Martin can hear of whatever she’s saying. With his free hand, Jon runs stiff fingers through his hair.

“Yes, we’re— No, we’re okay. We made it out,” Jon explains. “No, we’re— Ah. We’re at Martin’s.”

Jon’s voice drops off again, but Martin’s hardly paying attention at this point. His heart’s racing. The whole world and the ugly truth of it is going to have to come off pause soon, but…

But Jon keeps saying _we_. Martin isn’t sure when the two of them became a _we_ , but it feels so normal. Like they’re a matched set. Like they’ve been a matched set this whole time.

“I— what?” Jon says, his face going slack with— surprise? Shock? Something like that. “Are you sure that’s— No, I see what you— Okay. Right. … Okay. I see your point. Okay, yes.”

Jon stops his pacing, half-facing Martin, staring intently at the floor with his phone clutched tightly in his hand.

“I understand, I just… Are you— are you sure? We can stay, we can—”

Another abrupt stop. Jon’s eyebrows pinch together adorably, even if it’s troubling.

“…Alright,” he finally says, “alright. I’ll. I’ll text you? Okay, yes, goodb—”

He pulls the phone away, frowns at it.

“She hung up on me,” he tells Martin.

“What was all that about?” Martin asks.

“Ah,” Jon says, as she types something on his phone and then sets it aside again on the arm of Martin’s sofa. “Basira seems to think it would be wise for the two of us to… not be here, at the moment. She suggests we get as far away from London as possible.”

Martin blinks. “What, like, go on the _lam_?”

Jon hums. “Something like that. With the scene at the Institute yesterday, the place is, well. Several active crime scenes at once, most likely. And there’s still the Hunters and Not Sasha and—” He falters for a moment, frowns deeply— “ _Jonah_ after us. Overall, not a safe place to be right now.”

“Right,” Martin says, feeling all the color drain from his face. This is it, the whole world crashing back down on their shoulders— on Jon’s shoulders, specifically, and all Martin can do is stand by and watch and be scared for him.

“Apparently Daisy owns. Safehouses. Basira’s going to come by and work out the details, give us keys. She thinks— she says the one that furthest from London is somewhere up in the Scottish highlands.”

Martin blinks. “… Basira wants us to run off to Scotland?”

“She does,” Jon confirms.

“What about her? What’s she doing?”

Jon sighs. “She assures me she will handle herself here.”

Martin’s eyebrows bunch together. “She’s not coming?”

Jon shakes his head. “She just told _me_ to go.”

Martin looks at Jon. Jon’s too distracted to meet his eyes, but that’s okay— Martin’s not great at eye contact, anyway. Even before the Lonely it wasn’t his strong suit. “So it’s just… it’s just you and me? Fleeing the country together?”

Jon huffs, eyes flitting up to Martin’s for the briefest of seconds before returning to his agitated hands in front of him. “… If you’ll come with me,” he says, tentative, slow. “I— it occurs to me I— well, I just assumed that you would— give up your life and, and— You don’t— if you want to stay, you can, I don’t think you’d be in active danger here, but…”

Martin swallows. “But?”

“But I don’t—” Jon takes a shuddering, slow breath. “I don’t want to lose you again. I’d like it if you came with me.”

Martin’s lungs feel like they’re filled with jelly, his heart gone rubbery and frantic, his hands balling up into tight, anxious fists. He stares at Jon, and stares at Jon, and stares at Jon, like if he keeps looking things will make sense. (As if; he’s familiar enough with the Beholding to know that’s not how any of this works.)

There is something heavy behind Martin’s ribs, something that has lived there since Jon took Martin’s hands in his own before the Unknowing and promised he’d to come back to him. Something that Martin has buried and buried and buried because there was never the time, and there was always something more important to be dealt with, always some newer and more painful grief demanding his attention.

“Are we—” Martin starts, and can’t make himself finish. The question lodges in his throat, trapped behind a year of supernatural isolation and fear and a lifetime of the normal kind.

Hesitantly, Jon turns to face him fully, tilting his head just so to one side. “… Are we what?” he asks, in that gentle, gentle voice he’s unearthed sometime during the time Martin spent trying to smother anything soft he had within himself.

Martin bites the inside of his cheek, hard, pulls all the strength he can muster around himself. “Look, you— you came into the Lonely for me. You said you need me, and— and I know what the Lonely’s like. You can’t just, just. Walk out. You need to—” His voice catches, stops again like a skipping recording. “But I also saw you throw yourself into a coffin for Daisy, and you shouldn’t have been able to get out of that one, either, except you did, somehow, and you pulled her out with you, so. So maybe I’m, I’m reading things wrong somehow but— it feels like. Are we— do you—”

He punctuates it all with a vague, uneasy wave of his hand, and that’s about all he can manage. But the way Jon’s face goes all soft around the edges, brown eyes warm as hearth fire when they meet Martin’s, tells him he understands.

Jon takes three silent steps closer until he’s standing right in front of Martin. He reaches out, takes one of Martin’s hands between both of his, rubbing his thumb back and forth until Martin relaxes enough to unclench them.

“Martin,” Jon says, “do you know how I made it out of the Buried with Daisy?”

Martin swallows. He can’t answer, can’t get his words unstuck from his throat, so he just shrugs one shoulder.

“I thought I had to have some kind of— of flesh anchor — I actually had the Boneturner pull a rib out that I kept in my desk.” Martin winces, but Jon keeps going before he can interject. “I thought if there was a piece of me left above ground I could find my way back to it. It…” He huffs. “It didn’t work. By the time I was deep enough to find Daisy, I couldn’t feel it at all.

“But someone… Well, someone left all these _tapes_ on top of the coffin.”

Martin can hear his heart beating in his ears, the heat rising to his cheeks.

“You got me out of there,” Jon tells him, “You’re the reason I made it out of the Buried. _You_ were the piece of me I left above ground, and you’re the reason I could get us out of the Lonely. If you’re asking if you and I are… together, then… Well, I. I would very much like us to be, if that’s what you want, too.”

Martin’s hand, held safely between both of Jon’s, tightens, and he brings his free hand up to curl around the back of Jon’s fingers.

Jon sighs, but not out of any kind of exasperation. “I meant what I said in there, Martin,” he says, reverently, “I need you. And more importantly, I. I want you. With me.”

Martin’s shoulders sag, and he tips forward, until his forehead rests against Jon’s, eyes falling closed. Jon extracts one of his hands, but only for a moment, so he can give Martin’s shoulder a light squeeze and leave it resting there.

“Okay,” Martin finally says, nodding. “Um. Thank you.”

Jon pulls back, and Martin opens his eyes to see Jon looking back at him, a warm glow filling the space between them and a charmed, but distinctly cheeky smile on his face. “‘Thank you’? Did you really just _thank_ me for my love confession?”

“I—” Martin flounders for a minute, cheeks heating up. “I— no, wait, hang on, _love confession_? You never actually said you love me!”

Jon scoffs. “Ah, yes. All I said was that you keep my anchored to humanity against ancient unknowably powerful forces of fear, pardon me for the _ambiguity_.”

“Hey, I’m just saying you didn’t _say the words_ ,” Martin insists, “so. Doesn’t count as a, a _confession_.”

Jon opens his mouth, then gently shuts it again. “Alright, fair enough.” And then, he’s got his hands on Martin’s face, thumbs on his cheekbones, fingertips just grazing against the back of his neck, looking right into his eyes. “Martin Blackwood, let me say, in no uncertain terms: I love you.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then, before he even really realizes what he’s doing, Martin’s wrapping Jon up in his arms, tugging him into a fierce hug. Jon takes a second to acclimate, but then his arms are around Martin’s neck and he sinks into it, fingers of one hand burying in Martin’s hair, the other flat between Martin’s shoulders, standing up on his toes and pulling him closer.

Martin feels Jon’s lips, just by his ear. “Hopefully that cleared things up?” He whispers, close enough that his hair ruffles, just a bit.

Martin huffs, a choked, delighted little laugh into Jon’s shoulder. “Yep,” he says, “clear as crystal now, thanks.”

“Good.”

They settle together, and any lingering chill still trying to cling to Martin after the Lonely fades with Jon’s chest pressed flush into his.

He pulls back after a moment, hands lingering on Jon’s face, his neck, settling gingerly on his shoulders. He doesn’t want to stop touching Jon, and he thinks Jon doesn’t want to stop touching him, either.

“So…” Martin trails off, looking hopeful. “We’re going to Scotland?”

The smile Jon gives him is lovely beyond any poetic metaphor Martin has ever written. “We’re going to Scotland,” he agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading !! :+) title comes from 'ghosting' by mother mother which is a HUGE martin song and u should go listen to it right now and have a little breakdown about martin! (this is what i just did. would recommend. i hurt!)
> 
> hope u enjoyed. feel free 2 come talk to me on [tumblr](https://helenspiralgf.tumblr.com/) :++)


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